Student continues healing process post-crash

CHICO — When Brandon Fisher began riding motorcycles at 15, he told his mom not to worry because his protective gear made him safer than other modes of transportation.

"He said, 'I could get hit walking across the street and die,'" recalled his mother, Juline Hobbs on Friday.

Those words hit too close for comfort last month, when the construction management major was struck by a truck in Chico, which shattered his pelvis and caused serious brain trauma.

Fisher went into a coma and nearly died from pneumonia complications, but he survived.

This week, 25 days after the devastating accident, Fisher left Enloe Medical Center for a rehabilitation facility near Sacramento. There, therapists are working with him on his physical, mental and speaking abilities in hopes he can return to Chico to finish his degree.

After emerging from a coma Dec. 23, Fisher still sleeps about 20 hours a day, but his family sees many signs of his returning intelligence and personality, Hobbs said.

He can spell, is beginning to write and can feed himself. On Thursday, a friend brought a Nerf gun and Fisher happily used his motor skills to track people in his room and fire shots with impressive accuracy, Hobbs said.

Fisher will return to Chico later this month for surgery on his pelvis. Then he can re-learn to walk.

"It's baby steps," Hobbs said. "It's him growing up again."

She is inspired by another patient's poster that states, "Let him sleep, for when he wakes, he will move mountains."

"That's Brandon," Hobbs said.

Fisher, 21, had just finished a bar crawl with fellow students on Dec. 8 and was walking home. It was about 2:45 a.m. when, 50 feet from his apartment, he began to cross the street and was hit by an approaching truck.

Chico Police Department investigators concluded Friday that Fisher was not at fault in the accident.

The phone call that woke Hobbs that early December morning was every parent's nightmare, she said. As Fisher's family raced to Chico, Hobbs called his friends and asked them to go to the hospital so her son would not be alone if he died.

The doctors, nurses and staff at Enloe Medical Center did an amazing job, both in treating Fisher and taking care of his family, she said, noting people stopped her in the hall to say they were praying for his recovery.

"Until this happens, you live an everyday life," she said. "I never knew there were so many miracles that existed on the planet."

A young man with a passion for extreme sports, Fisher also loves motorcycles and was a member of the Chico Riders street bike group. He coached a Chico Little League team, and many players visited him in the hospital, along with his professors and coworkers from Outback Steakhouse.

Fisher has only three classes left to complete his degree. After a construction stint last summer with Howard S. Wright, he was named intern of the year, awarded a $5,000 scholarship for school and signed an employment contract to work for the company as a project manager after graduation.

"I still see Brandon doing that," Hobbs said. "It might take him a little longer, but I think he's gonna be able to do it."